Monday, January 02, 2012

The state of fear at the new year | StarTribune.com

The anti-climate-change crowd refuses to yield to the evidence.

The state of fear at the new year | StarTribune.com

The largest dose of false information I heard came from Jeffers on her Saturday-night show. A soft-spoken gentleman called in, declared himself a lifelong Republican, and wondered why conservatives are so hard on climate-change science, which he found convincing. She browbeat him with a torrent of misinformation: There is no global warming; polar bears are not in trouble; consult the work of "Lord" Monckton; on and on.

I wondered where she got this nonsense, so I checked her website. There she promotes links to the Republican Party, the Tea Party, and a site called "Minnesotans for Climate Change," which is linked regularly to Wattsupwiththat.com. Mystery solved -- mad Anthony Watts is a major source for the misinformation she dumps on her listeners.

Watts is an anti-climate-science blogger with a background in television meteorology, not climate science. His mocking assertions have provided no end of fuel for climate-change "skeptics," particularly his misguided alarms about records showing an upward trend in global temperatures.

A Big Picture Look At “Earth’s Temperature” | Watts Up With That?

“Earth’s Temperature” appears to have increased during the last several decades, but there does not appear to be evidence that Earth’s climate is “warming rapidly”. Furthermore, there are no apparent signs of warming occurring “at an accelerating rate”.

Some interesting correspondence

Marcia Turnquist writes:

I sent an email to NOAA a few days back, calling their arctic report card video propaganda and I got an inquiry back from a Jana Goldman, asking why I thought so. My response is below. You HAVE to watch the video I referenced. It's priceless.

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